Dev1037 Enhancement of Battle Effects

[Fensfield]

Oh well, if it's feedback we're throwing about, I'll say my bit and all..

The battle animations - the actual, moving model swinging its weapon and so forth animations - are wonderful. Please, be very careful when doing stuff with them. Setting aside when you forcefully override one ability into another, they flow almost perfectly with little to no clear point where one animation-state ends and another begins. It would be horrible if we lost that.

On spells, however? Well, in my opinion, the spell effects were rather nice.. there was something cool about the understated style, though I guess it's no bother if you feel like playing around with them. But if you ask me, what needs looking at are the animations on the casters themselves. Casters have one animation, basically (or is there a separate one for radicals? anyway, 2, tops) for casting magic. While that's all well and good it makes the casting process terribly boring, and I would suggest, if new caster animations are out, to add magic circles or something. They wouldn't have to be huge, flashy things under the casters, but a little something around the radical or wand maybe..

Oh, and the 'magic missile'-type spells could really do with visible projectiles.

Anyway, yeah, that's my thoughts. A tad irrelevant to the discussion though it may be, lest it not be said at all: Careful with the melee animations, you might break something that's already really nice. But the casting animations are a bit lackluster.

[Neffie]

Oh, and the 'magic missile' type spells could really do with visible projectiles.

I second this, honestly when i was playing the alpha and i saw the spell "Shadow Dart", i honestly thought i'd see a little magic orb or something fly and hit the enemy....but really all it looks like is i'm waving my staff about and the enemy is having a fit while all these little numbers fall out of it.

^^;

[Alcide]

This is just a speculation, but I think the current DoM has got great potential for animations just thinking about how their AoE works. Personally I love the fact that you can toggle AoE on/off whenever you want for any spell, but I don't like the fact that the animation is always the same, it's both lame and it makes difficult to understand the range of the AoE.

Now think about our DoM: we've got two different types of AoE, conal and circle (love this feature *-*).
If they work toward a visible rapresentation of the AoE on the field instead of multiple spells on all of the mobs we could have, in exemple, a Fire AoE casted by a Conjurer that consist in the whole field of effect burning, and a Fire AoE casted by a Thaumaturge that is a wall of flames spreading from the mage.
This would both be damn cool and help the players to understand the different AoE.

[OJtheLIONKing]

This is just a speculation, but I think the current DoM has got great potential for animations just thinking about how their AoE works. Personally I love the fact that you can toggle AoE on/off whenever you want for any spell, but I don't like the fact that the animation is always the same, it's both lame and it makes difficult to understand the range of the AoE.

Now think about our DoM: we've got two different types of AoE, conal and circle (love this feature *-*).
If they work toward a visible rapresentation of the AoE on the field instead of multiple spells on all of the mobs we could have, in exemple, a Fire AoE casted by a Conjurer that consist in the whole field of effect burning, and a Fire AoE casted by a Thaumaturge that is a wall of flames spreading from the mage.
This would both be damn cool and help the players to understand the different AoE.

I think this is a quite good idea. The old animations aren't bad, per se, just a bit understated, but adding new ones for AoE will make the different types more distinctive. i'm thinking back to FF7 where the single target spell would look cool, but the multi-target spell looked like the world was ending (my sole motivation for playing a mage of any type). Especially Thunder3-All =D.

Obviously it can't be that huge in an MMO, but this would be a good direction to go as far as new particle effects.

[Bayohne]

Hey everyone! One of the lead designers, Hiroshi Takai, recently posted some further insight into the enhancement of battle effects and other advances going forward. Without further ado...

Hello everyone! This is design lead Takai!

As previously mentioned in the most recent Letter from the Producer, the development team is divided into a number of smaller teams that work together side-by-side on the overall scope of the game. While the effects team is one aspect of this, the work that was required to adjust the scale of battle effects was almost completely separate, made no impact on the work of other teams, and was something that we were able to complete single-handedly.

We’re aware that players feel that the game screen is looking fairly somber at the moment when it comes to graphics and effects. We’ll do our best to quickly release elements that are able to contribute to addressing that very issue.

This most recent battle effect size enhancement is similar to the case with the previous monster scale adjustments. Naturally we’re not done yet, and we’re currently making adjustments in conjunction with the battle team lead by Matsui. This collaboration is tied into various elements, as well as motion adjustments, related to the battle system and battle content and we’re moving steadily closer toward the releasing the first set of updates.

I’m sure I’m going to frustrate some of you with the fact that I can’t give you the specifics about the content or the release schedule, but know that this doesn’t just apply to effects; we’re also taking care of things related to the all around graphics. Hang in there until Yoshi-P makes his announcement!

Thanks!

[Chezen]

Thank you for doing what you can for now, dev team. I look forward to what you have in store.

[OMEGA_HACK]

Less copy/pasta environments mayhaps? That would be very welcome in the main travel paths.

[Grimm]

we’re also taking care of things related to the all around graphics. Hang in there until Yoshi-P makes his announcement!

=) I wonder what this means for Eorzea!

[Lahru_Hukurou]

I'm really glad to hear more from the dev team. Helps me get more of a feel for them and all. Really am thinking that this game is going to shape up very nicely ^__^

[Nakiamiie]

Thank you for doing what you can for now, dev team. I look forward to what you have in store.

Idem, I feel the same!